Nyaope is believed to be South Africa's worst drug and is now officially an illegal drug in the country.

According to Health24, nyaope is a highly addictive, dangerous and destructive street drug, unique to South Africa.

North-West University (NWU) PhD graduate Dr Malebo Mashaba examined the psychosocial pathways to wellbeing and mental health of nyaope users during her PhD studies.

According to her promoter, Prof Erhabor Idemudia, the study was anchored on a cross-sectional survey design that compared 438 nyaope users in rehabilitation with a control group of 443 high school non-users in Gauteng.

“Dr Mashaba used advanced statistical methods to investigate the link between psychosocial factors (personality, self-esteem, gender, living arrangement and geographical location), and the mental health of nyaope users,” he explains.

“She also examined the mediating effect of psychosocial pathways to psychological wellbeing in the association of personality and self-esteem with mental health, and sought to determine if nyaope users differ from non-users in this regard.”

According to Dr Mashaba the results of her study presented several dynamics which shows that nyaope users have lower psychosocial pathways to psychological wellbeing and poorer mental health outcomes compared to non-users.

“In addition, higher levels of self-esteem predicted increased psychosocial pathways to psychological wellbeing and lower mental health problems among nyaope users,” she says.

Dr Malebo adds that self-esteem and psychosocial pathways to psychological wellbeing partly and successively mediated the positive relationship between psychoticism and mental health.

“This successive mediation was found to be specific for female nyaope users, especially those in foster care.

“Nyaope users in urban settings appear to have lower psychosocial pathways to psychological wellbeing and increased mental health challenges compared to users in rural/semi-urban areas. This led to several recommendations to understand the aetiology of the problem, which will help to determine the appropriate psychotherapeutic formulations.”

Dr Malebo Mashaba